Rosie grinned. “I know. It’s a good thing we had different interests growing up, so you were never that interested in my gifts.”
“Except for your chocolate.”
“You and Jamie were as bad as each other.”
Becky leaned her head on her shoulder. “How do I fall out of love with Will?”
“I don’t know, but whatever happens I’m here for you and we’re going to figure it out together.” Rosie watched as a robin hopped onto the snow-covered hedge, its red breast providing a splash of red in a world that was white. “And for the next couple of days you don’t have to worry about it. You’re pretending to be in love with each other. No one has to know that for you it’s real. It will be easy.”
“Except when we’re in private.” Becky sighed. “He’s probably awake by now. What am I going to say to him about last night?”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just behave normally.”
“Nothing about this situation is normal. And I don’t know what to say to him when we’re alone. And how do I handle the ending?” Becky gave a whimper of horror. “I don’t even want to think about what happens when I break up with him. Both sets of parents will be horrified. I never should have pretended we were together, but I had no idea it was going to escalate like this. It’s like a very bad romcom.”
“A very good romcom! I can see it now—A Merry Little Lie.”
“Oh, very festive.”
They walked back to the house, arms linked.
“You’re still my number one person, by the way.” Rosie pushed open the front door. “You always will be. Just don’t tell Declan that.”
“Don’t tell Declan what?” Declan was standing there, wearing his coat. “I was just coming to find you.”
Rosie’s heart lifted. “You were? Why?”
“Because I woke up and you were gone. I wanted to check everything was okay. In case—well, in case you wanted to talk about anything.”
Becky grinned. “Who are you and what have you done with strong, silent Declan?” But she gave his arm a squeeze as she walked past him. “Good for you. Next thing we know you’ll be drinking a whole mug of coffee and not leaving half of it.”
Declan raised an eyebrow and turned back to Rosie. “What was that about?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “Happy Christmas Eve. It’s my favourite day.”
Chapter25
Hayley
Hayley sat on the floor of the living room, helping Jamie to wrap presents.
“I’ve told everyone they’re not allowed to come in until we open the door.” He reached for a box and the large bag of wrapping paper that his mother had recycled from the year before. “This is the hard part. My grandmother insists on using the same paper as many times as possible. It gets stored in a bag and reused. Just make sure you’ve removed any previous tags that say ‘from Becky to Rosie’ or it gets very confusing. And when you get given a gift try not to rip the paper off in joyous abandon. Peel it carefully and don’t tear it.”
Hayley, who had been frugal for most of her life, thought that sounded entirely logical.
“I like the fact that you reuse everything. This is another family tradition?”
“One of the more annoying ones.” He pulled out a sheet that seemed to have more holes than paper and rolled his eyes. “You see what I mean? What are we supposed to do with this? Wrap a Swiss cheese and hope the holes line up?”
She giggled and took it from him. “It’s fine. I can cut round the holes and use it for the makeup we bought for Rosie.”
“Youbought.” He watched as she neatly cut and wrapped, trimming edges and discarding old tape. “Okay, you’re good at this. I should have predicted that.”
“It’s not rocket science, Jamie.”
“It is if you didn’t inherit the wrapping genes.”
She placed Rosie’s gift in the middle of a piece of newly trimmed paper. “There are genes that dictate your skill at wrapping?”
